


A Soft Heart in a Cruel World

by terrys_chocklit_orange



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 09:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22848157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrys_chocklit_orange/pseuds/terrys_chocklit_orange
Summary: Yurga is a kind man.(Short fill-in fic for Episode 1.08: Much More.)
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	A Soft Heart in a Cruel World

Yurga did not set out that morning with the intention of bringing home an injured Witcher. 

He didn't have any intentions beyond doing his job, doing what it took to keep his family fed and healthy. But even in this war torn world of every man for himself and his own, Yurga could not leave the bodies of the Cintran refugees to the wolves and the vultures. They deserved dignity in death, the same as anyone. Yurga may have been poor, may have been suffering like everyone else, but he still had his humanity. 

“Your kind heart will be the end of you,” Zola once told him, as if her heart were not just as kind. Today, however, she was almost right. 

When he saw the Witcher, comatose with a wound that would have surely killed a mortal man immediately, Yurga didn't think twice. Grunting and straining beneath the weight of him, he loaded the man—and at the moment, he was just a man, an injured man in need of help—onto the cart. His horse was shy. She whinnied and pulled away when Yurga caught her by the reins. 

“There, there, pretty thing. I won't hurt you.” Yurga soothed. “Got to bring you back to our place. Got to fetch the healer for your master.” He always had a way with horses. Even as a young boy, he could tame the wildest of them. This one cried out again, but, with Yurga's soothing hand on her flank, she allowed herself to be tied behind the cart. Perhaps she saw the Witcher lying there and knew what had to be done. Horses always were cleverer than people gave them credit for.

Not so Witchers, apparently. Whatever medicine he gave himself knocked him out, though, settling him enough to keep him from trying to climb off the cart. When Yurga paused to give the horses water and rest, he dragged the Witcher down and rested him against a tree. 

That was when he began to talk. The Witcher had murmured almost the entire trip, nonsense syllables and words Yurga, at least, couldn't understand. Now, he spoke clearer. Women's names, mostly. Renfri. Yennefer. Visenna. Jaskier. The last, he repeated most of all, usually followed by “I'm sorry” and “I love you.” It sounded so sincere, so much more heartfelt than Yurga would have assumed a Witcher capable of. Yurga wondered what wrong the Witcher had done this “buttercup,” for whom he evidently felt so deeply. 

It didn't matter, really. Whatever it was, it couldn't affect the debt Yurga owed the Witcher, both as a human being, and because he had saved Yurga's life. 

When the Witcher awoke, asking where “the woman” went, Yurga couldn't help but chuckle. 

“Which one? You called out for so many.”

He meant Jaskier, Yurga assumed. He didn't say that. It was none of his business. Instead, Yurga did what he had set out to do. He brought the Witcher back to his village, only to have him immediately go limping off into the woods in pursuit of some stray orphan girl Zola had brought home with her. 

“We're a pair, aren't we, love?” Zola sighed, putting an arm around Yurga's waist. 

“Softest touches on all the Continent,” Yurga agreed. 

“How lucky,” his beloved answered, “that we found one another.” She kissed him, as gentle and as sweet as if they were courting youngsters again, and followed him into the forest in pursuit of their charges.


End file.
